WSJ
_INFORMATION AGE_
(http://online.wsj.com/public/search?article-doc-type={Information+Age}&HEADER_TEXT=information+age)
December 16, 2012, 7:02 p.m.
ET
America's First Big Digital Defeat
A majority of the 193 U.N. member countries have approved a treaty giving
governments new powers to close off access to the Internet in their
countries.
The open Internet, available to people around the world without the
permission of any government, was a great liberation. It was also too good to
last. Authoritarian governments this month won the first battle to close off
parts of the Internet.
At the just-concluded conference of the International Telecommunications
Union in Dubai, the U.S. and its allies got outmaneuvered. The ITU conference
was highly technical, which may be why the media outside of tech blogs
paid little attention, but the result is noteworthy: A majority of the 193
United Nations member countries approved a treaty giving governments new
powers to close off access to the Internet in their countries.
U.S. diplomats were shocked by the result, but they shouldn't have been
surprised. Authoritarian regimes, led by Russia and China, have long schemed
to use the U.N. to claim control over today's borderless Internet, whose
open, decentralized architecture makes it hard for these countries to close
their people off entirely. In the run-up to the conference, dozens of secret
proposals by authoritarian governments were leaked online.
ITU head Hamadoun Touré, a Mali native trained in the Soviet Union, had
assured that his agency operates by consensus, not by majority vote. He also
pledged that the ITU had no interest beyond telecommunications to include
the Internet. He kept neither promise.
A vote was called late one night last week in Dubai—at first described as a
nonbinding "feel of the room on who will accept"—on a draft giving
countries new power over the Internet.
The result was 89 countries in favor, with 55 against. The authoritarian
majority included Russia, China, Arab countries, Iran and much of Africa.
Under the rules of the ITU, the treaty takes effect in 2015 for these
countries. Countries that opposed it are not bound by it, but Internet users
in
free countries will also suffer as global networks split into two camps—one
open, one closed.
The U.S. delegation never understood this conference was fundamentally a
battle in what might be called the Digital Cold War. Russia and China had
long been lobbying for votes, but U.S. opposition got serious only at the
conference itself. Even then, Mr. Touré claimed he thought the U.S. would
support the ITU treaty: "I couldn't imagine that at the end they wouldn't
sign."
The treaty document extends control over Internet companies, not just
telecoms. It declares: "All governments should have an equal role and
responsibility for international Internet governance." This is a complete
reversal
of the privately managed Internet. Authoritarian governments will invoke
U.N. authority to take control over access to the Internet, making it harder
for their citizens to get around national firewalls. They now have the
U.N.'s blessing to censor, monitor traffic, and prosecute troublemakers.
Internet users in still-open countries will be harmed, too. Today's
smoothly functioning system includes 40,000 privately managed networks among
425,000 global routes that ignore national boundaries. Expect these networks
to
be split by a digital Iron Curtain. The Internet will become less
resilient. Websites will no longer be global.
Under the perverse U.N. definition of progress, Mr. Touré is delighted with
the ITU undermining the open Internet. "History will show that this
conference has achieved something extremely important," he said. "It has
succeeded in bringing unprecedented public attention to the different and
important
perspectives that govern global communications." The treaty calls on
countries to "elaborate" their views on the Internet at future ITU
conferences,
so these issues are here to stay.
Robert McDowell, a Republican member of the Federal Communications
Commission, summarized the harm. "Consumers everywhere will ultimately pay the
p
rice for this power grab as engineers and entrepreneurs try to navigate this
new era of an internationally politicized Internet," he said. "Let's never
be slow to respond again."
One lesson is that the best defense of the Internet is a good offense
against an overreaching U.N. The majority of authoritarian governments in a
one-country, one-vote system will keep chipping away at the open Internet. The
best way to stop them is to abolish the ITU.
As outlined in _last week's column_
(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324001104578167242735088684.html)
, former Obama administration
technology adviser Andrew McLaughlin proposes applying the nongovernmental
model now operating the Internet to the telecommunications industry as well.
That would make the ITU unnecessary. Both houses of Congress voted
unanimously against any ITU treaty endangering the open Internet. One expects
lawmakers would happily support the Obama administration if it gathers the
resolve to abolish the U.N. agency.
Just as during the last Cold War, the clash over the future of the Internet
will have many battles across many fronts. Authoritarian governments are
highly motivated to close the Internet off. But just as in the Cold War,
these regimes are doomed to lose if free countries resolve to fight. Whatever
governments want, people prefer freedom and eventually will get it,
including on the Internet.
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
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Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
